


Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run

by communikate



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Compliant, Demon Summoning, Demons, M/M, Memory Magic, Party Games, Poker, Pre-Canon, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-05 21:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12802596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/communikate/pseuds/communikate
Summary: Pilot Error. Kerberos Mission failure.Shiro is dead.Keith would be willing to do anything to bring Shiro back, even if it meant summoning a demon.





	Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run

**Title:** Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Run  
**Trope Showcased:** Party Games  


### 

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Keith accidently smeared blood across his eyebrow and the bridge of his nose. He examined his work with a critical eye. It looked like every horror movie’s rendition of a pentagram: streaky finger-painted lines and a lopsided star on the warped wood flooring of his shack. At each point was a candle, all of differing colors, scents, and sizes.

Okay, so it looked worse than a B-rated horror film, but it would have to do.

He stood over the pentagram, candles flickering as the only source of light in the room, the last dredges of dusty moonlight pouring through his open window. Keith grabbed his knife from his belt, bringing it to his open hand. With only a slight hesitation, he sliced through his palm. He hissed unintentionally as blood beaded on his skin and a single droplet fell to the center of the pentagram.

His breath stilled in his chest, chills traversing his flesh. He clenched his hand, fingernails digging into the tender and wounded skin. Blood leaked between his fingers and splattered to the shack floor.

But nothing happened.

“Hello,” Keith called with a shaky voice that was too loud for the quiet night in the desert. Fully aware that he sounded ridiculous talking to the chilled air and a crude, bloody drawing, he dug his nails deeper into his palm, steadying himself with flashes of pain. “I know - I know that there’s something out there. If you aren’t attracted by all of his shit,” Keith waved his hands around, dripping blood across the floor and sprinkling it on the drawings he had pinned up on his corkboard, “then tell me what you want!

“What do I have to do to get him back?!” Keith screamed, knees weakening as he collapsed to the floor. His hands slammed the edge of the pentagram, mixing his blood with the dried painting.

“Just give him back to me!” With trembling limbs, he squeezed his eyes closed, crushing any desperate tears. Because over the months since the announcement - concealing sobs in the pressed sheets of the Garrison and masking depression behind indifference or the flurry of punches to Iverson’s face the last time he flaunted the words “Pilot Error” or the long nights in the desert with only his knife and the stars - he had run out of tears.

There was a sudden chill in the room, something more than the drafty shack and cold desert nights. It was tremulous as it crawled along his skin as if tasting him with tendrils of darkness. He clutched the knife so tightly it shook in his hand, prepared to attack even while positioned on his knees.

The candles flickered out.

Keith jumped back, skidding along the floor and staring at the pentagram with tension in his muscles and a strange looming hope in his heart.

There was a soft hum as the candles slowly flickered to life with purple flame. “I always like the desperate ones,” a voice cooed like frost on a window, creeping and cracking, glacial and beautiful. A shadow stepped within the lights of the candles, solidifying around the form of a sleek body, long hair tickling around fine hip bones and broad shoulders defined by black armor. Their face was smirking, twisted in a confident smile as they leaned forward. Their silver hair brushed over one of the candles, dancing around the flame without worry of catching fire. Demons were born of fire.

Fingers like ice gripped Keith's chin, nails digging into his cheeks as the demon twisted his head to either side as if examining him.

"You look positively delectable." They licked their lips, drawing Keith's vision from the lithe, powerful outline of their body to the angelic planes of their face. High cheekbones and bright, wide set eyes on a heart shaped face, angled and shadowed in the light of the candles. They arched a single delicate brow, furrowing their pale forehead in confusion.

They were truly inhuman.

Keith's fingers trembled, lungs constricting and vision tunneling to only the demon's face. His tongue sat heavy in his dry mouth. A whimper squeaked from his constricted throat in a mockery of speech. With a twitch, he yanked his head back from the the bitter grasp of those icy fingers, but they just dug in deeper, threatening to puncture the tender flesh of his cheeks.

With a small huff, the demon released him, settling to a comfortable seat within the pentagram, one leg tucked to their chest and the other splayed out towards one of the lopsided points of the star. A thin veil of black fabric settled over their body, draping from the points of black shoulder armor along their graceful form.

"Now," Their voice was honeyed wine, sweet and bitter and wholly intoxicating, "what do you want, child?"

They twirled a single strand of hair around their finger, tilting their head to the side, mimicking an act of human confusion. An exquisite jeweled earring dipped into the hollow of their collarbone with a fine twinkle.

Feeling returned to Keith’s fingertips from the distant sensation of pins and needles. Even if he had always expected there was more to this world that the confines of society, he never anticipated encountering it. The casual intimidation of the demon’s immeasurable power that they wore like a second skin chilled Keith to the very marrow of his bones. He sat forward, toes still tingling in his boots, but he was steady, vision pinpointed on the demon before him.

"Shiro," Keith whispered, hope rising like fog in his lungs while twining with the despair he had carried like iron in his bone marrow.

A small smile broke on the demon's face. It was entirely pointed teeth and a snarl. Their chuckle was smoke and brimstone.

"That is not an easy wish to accomplish." The demon brought a pointed nail to their teeth, clicking it between the sharp tips. Keith ground his teeth, throat constricting on demands he had practiced in the dead of the night, over crackling fires and in front of mirrors, but the demon's next chuckle cut him off. "Though I can see that you will not be persuaded otherwise. May I ask why this Shiro means so much to you?"

Keith narrowed his eyes, more steady in his posture as he became accustomed to the truly unearthly presence of the demon. "I know better than to offer anything to a demon without a price." His face was set, fingers grasped firmly on his knife, knowing it was probably useless around a demon such as this. Power radiated off every minute movement they made.

At Keith's response, they tossed their head back, earrings tinkling and silver hair dragging across the half-dry blood of the pentagram.

"You are much too entertaining, child." The demon breathed like a sigh of fog upon a mirror, fading the instant it was spoken. They curled a long strand of hair behind their ear, pointed nail grazing their cheekbone. "How about a name for a name?"

Keith stiffened, legs tightening with the anticipation of retreat. The natural instinct to run from inhuman things thrummed deep in his veins, but he steadied himself with the thought of Shiro and all that he promised to sacrifice to bring him home.

He nodded as a signal for the demon to start, because it wasn't like he trusted a demon to keep a promise. They only smiled like the first lost leaf of autumn.

"I have been called many names throughout the years: Thanatos, Shinigami, Freya, Kali, Grim Reaper." Their smile was wide, biting and a true realization that this thing wasn't human. Keith swallowed stiffly, muscles jumping as adrenaline pounded in his viens. "You may call me Shi, child."

"Keith," Keith stated as if it was propelled off his tongue, without thought or intention. His eyes widened, placing his barely-bleeding hand against his lips.

Promises with a demon were dangerous. _Shi_ was dangerous.

"Keith." Shi rolled his name along their tongue, as if tasting him and smiling as they enjoyed it. "Now, shall we play a game?" With the flick of their wrist, a deck of cards dropped from thin air onto the edge of the pentagram, black backed and edges shining like knives.

With trembling fingers, Keith picked up the deck, flipping the first card to see it was a King, bloody eyed and screaming as a scythe slashed through his neck. "A game?" Keith asked, tone quiet and harsh, contemplating the inhuman gleam in Shi's eyes.

"Yes, one of those party games you humans are so fond of." Shi's smile was wicked, tendrils of hair falling gently over their pale shoulders like mercury. "A game for your Shiro's life." The way Shi spoke Shiro's name made chills travel along his skin, goosebumps rising on the backs of his arms.

Keith shuffled the deck it with sharp movements to get feeling back to the tips of his shuddering fingers."What game?"

"Whatever you wish," the demon hissed, words like steam from an engine.

"Texas Holdem." Keith stated, shuffling the deck with more confidence, no matter how his heart faltered or fingers shook.

It was a game he knew well, one he had grown up with and played with more confidence and a crafted look of indifference he used in more aspects of his life than just poker.

Shi smiled, flicking their wrist again with a more exaggerated movement. Black poker chips fell to the warped wooden floor of the shack, scattering and rolling. One hit Keith's boot, toppling onto its side. A bone carving of a skull was on the face of the chip, looking up at him with hollow eyes.

The demon picked up a chip, rolling it between slender fingers. "One chip represents a year of life. I shall be betting Shiro's, and you shall be betting your own." Shi licked their lips as if anticipating the taste of victory.

They grabbed a pile, pushing one towards Keith with the tip of his nails. Their nail sizzled as it dipped out of the circle of the pentagram. Keith set the cards down, shuffled with the shining edges straightened. He gathered the pile of chips into his hands, counting them with eyes still focused on Shi.

"Ten years?" Keith asked, dropping the chips back to the floor with staggered clicks.

"For the potential of ten more years with your precious Shiro," Shi whispered, voice alluring. Their pupils dilated so that the yellowed whites of their eyes were drowned in black.

"And if I lose?" Keith questioned, fighting the urge to dive right in, to deal the cards and ante up. His hands lingered over the chips, fingertips brushing the cool bone of the carved skull.

Shi licked their lips, biting on the flesh with a flash of hunger in their eyes. "Then the ten years are removed from your total lifespan."

Keith picked up the deck of cards, shuffling them once before dealing each of them two cards. He set the deck in front of them, pausing for a breath, anxiety making his heart rate jump. "Do I have to win all the chips to end the game?" Precaution making him nervous as his fingers danced across the back of the cards in front of him.

Shi tapped their chin, sharpened nail puckering against their bottom lip, pouted in concentration and deliberation. "No, but if you end the game with 11 chips, your precious Shiro only has one year."

"Ante up," Keith declared, tossing a single chip into the center without even looking at his cards.

The demon smiled, picking up the cards from the corners that settled on the edge of the pentagram. They examined them with a tentative smile twitching on the corners of their lips. With delicate fingers, they tossed a single chip to land next to Keith's.

With a nod, Keith burned the top card, flopping the next three down in succession: 8 of clubs, 10 of diamonds, and Ace of spades.

He picked up the corner of his cards, peering with only the minimal space necessary to see his cards. Ace of hearts and two of spades. So he had a pair of aces. He fought the small cocky smile that threatened to give his hand away.

Keith tossed another chip onto the growing pile. Shi did the same, not trying to raise him, just checking. He burned the top card and placed the next in the river, following the original flop. A jack of clubs, which didn't benefit him at all. But a pair of aces wasn't something to discourage him.

Shi rolled a single chip between their fingers before placing it down on the pile to the sound of hushed sizzling and the scent of burnt hair. "What could make this more interesting would be to turn it into that fascinating game." Shi's smile was all teeth and hunger, "Strip poker is it?"

Keith choked, feeling the tension in the air loosen with Shi's easygoing smile and now wandering eyes. There was a twist to their lips that denoted their minor sense of humor. He shook his head, adding another chip to the pile before burning the top card and flipping it over in the line of cards. 9 of clubs.

"Another chip, child?" Shi asked, pushing a chip towards the pile, hollow skull eyes almost following Keith as it was added.

Keith tossed another chip and flipped his cards to reveal the pair of aces. Shi's smile widened as they flipped their cards: an ace of clubs and an 8 of spades.

Two pair.

He’d lost.

Shi chuckled slightly, enjoying the victory as they dragged each chip back to their pile with the tips of their nails digging into the eye sockets of the skulls.

Keith quickly counted his chips. Six. He still had six left, a fighting chance.

Shi shuffled the deck with the flick of his wrist, not reaching out of the circle of the pentagram to collect all of the cards. Their smile was cold as pointed teeth dug into their bottom lip with ecstasy.

Another game was dealt, and Keith gripped his cards so hard they bent in his fingers. He ante'd up and watched the flop and Shi's eyes. They continued to play, chips bouncing between them and neither of them really gaining the upper hand, even as the moon's dusty glow diminished and the faint purple of the flickering candles grew less pronounced in the glowing dawn.

"Will you tell me why you'd risk so much for another of your kind?" Shi asked, fingers stalling over a chip as they spun it around on the wooden floor, flaking off some of the blood from the painted pentagram.

Keith deliberately ignored the demon, burning and flipping another card.

Shi played with a tendril of hair, analyzing the small tick in Keith’s jaw. “Is it love?” They whispered, a small, mocking coo. Keith faltered, and heard the soft click of the demon’s tongue, “It appears so. Humans will go to such extents for the ones they love.” Shi flicked their cards out, displaying a winning hand and dragging the chips into the circle of the pentagram.

“He’s like a brother to me,” Keith answered, throwing his third to last chip in for the ante.

Shi barked a laugh, a harsh slap of power in the room that made the candles flicker and Keith glance up at their face. Their eyes were pinched, pupils blown wide, consuming the whites of their eyes in a shade of hunger. Shi’s high cheekbones were colored with a blush of laughter, staining their pale skin with an imitation of humanity.

“Child, I can see more than that, and if you cannot, you are a fool,” Shi commented, flicking one of their many chips into the pile and drawing their cards to their chests, the corners catching the gossamer fabric.

Keith gritted his teeth, flipping the cards with vigor and pushing in his last chip, going all in on this last hand. He tossed down his full house with a wicked smile and snatching up the six chips with a small snarl.

They played more hands, and Shi kept attempting to draw more information from him with twirls of their hands and crooked smiles that began to appear more and more human.

“Have you confessed your love?” Shi asked, shifting to lean forward on their stomach, feet kicking up behind them and dancing softly in the air, completely relaxed. Unlike Keith who had begun to sweat with the rising sun, clinging his t-shirt to his back and beading the top of his lip. His stomach roiled with tremulous bile as Shi won this next hand, dragging the pile into the pentagram.

Keith had two chips left.

Shi flipped strands of hair over their shoulder, like wisps of starlight. “We must be done with this game soon, child.” Their black eyes drifted to the window and the way the sunlight saturated the night horizon, silhouetting the surrounding mountains with scatters of colors. “You know that as well as I.” They dragged a pointed nail across the painted blood of the pentagram, chipping the blood with a faint smile.

“Then let’s play another hand,” Keith growled, picking up the deck and shuffling it so roughly the sharpened edges dug into the sensitive skin of his fingertips.

“Keith,” Shi whispered, voice like honey, syrupy and sugary. “You have brought me great joy by summoning me. I have not had such an experience in millennia.” The demon pushed all of their chips out of the pentagram, going all in, “I will allow for another method to return your Shiro, at the small price of four years.”

Keith turned his chips in his palm, feeling the weight of them, impossible to measure the weight of four years. “What’s the deal?”

“Memories.” Shi sat up, no longer lounging. The set to their perfect jaw was tense, contemplating the minutiae of the verbal contract. “Your world is much brighter than mine, and your memories so potent. I would love a memory or two of you and Shiro -”

“No! That’s out of the question,” Keith growled, hands squeezing the chips so hard they creaked in his hand.

He dealt another hand, not looking at the disappointment echoing in Shi’s features. He tossed his coins in the pile, but Shi didn’t pick up their cards. “That is not bet enough to continue, child.”

Keith squeezed his eyes closed, grinding his teeth and debating the weight of his memories. They had nurtured him, brought him to the place where he was now - crouched on the floor, meeting the decisive gaze of a demon of death, playing a game for the life of someone he loved.

Loved more than meager words that he never found the chance to admit. More than the soft touches and comforting hugs they shared or the late night conversations or the gentle support throughout the Garrison Shiro provided. Loved enough to give more than he had ever bargained for.

“Not Shiro,” Keith stated.

Shi smiled wide, beckoning Keith forward. He kneeled at the edge of the pentagram, heat from the purple flaming candles almost singeing his clothes. Shi’s fingers were ice as they pressed harshly on each temple.

Falling. Falling. Endless falling. Like the ground had been ripped out from under him, the wooden floor buckled and sent him spiraling towards Shi’s domain.

A soft tick from Shi drew him out of the spiral. “This Lance is peculiar. Funny almost.” Shi’s nails bit into his flesh as they held on tighter. “It’s almost sad that you don’t acknowledge him as your rival.”

“Take him. Take everything of him, and just give me Shiro.” Keith growled, the spinning in his stomach threatening to heave the contents.

“I cannot promise the length of time you will have your Shiro,” Shi whispered, voice like a chilling breath on his face, making him squeeze his eyes closed and not focus on the demons blown wide pupils that expanded and contracted with a faux heartbeat.

Keith chewed on his lip. “As long as I can have him once more.”

Shi pressed an icy kiss to Keith’s forehead. “Then it shall be as you wish, child.”

He expected it to be painful, but it was like waking. Like searching for the edges of a dream, the outlines of information were present, resonating with residual emotions. But any feelings, any colors that might have dyed the memories were leached from his mind.

Shi withdrew, standing tall in the center of the pentagram. Keith’s hands slammed the edge, head spinning and lips trembling, parted and struggling to form around words. An icy hand brushed through his sweaty hair.

“Look to the sky for your Shiro, and he shall return,” Shi whispered before the purple candles were snuffed out and the sun crested in the sky. Keith vomited in the center of the pentagram, hands scraping the painted blood and destroying the circle he had summoned the demon through.

He gazed to the fading stars and the seeping dye of sunrise, kept his eyes pinned to the clouds and the sun, searching and hoping with dread cementing his lungs. The next night, a comet crashed through the atmosphere, a light in purple fire.

Shiro had returned, changed and scared and skittish, but it was his Shiro.

His heart leaped in his chest, pounding and fluttering with adrenaline and pure unadulterated joy. Everything was familiar about the boy he carried: the heat of his skin beneath his fingers, the faint scent of musk on his skin, the tentative smile, and tone of his voice.

All he had wanted to do was break down and cradle Shiro in his arms, but the explosions he had set up would only distract the Garrison employees for so long. He also refused to cry in front of the cadets, especially after Lance challenged him and casually slung Shiro’s arm around his shoulders as if he too had summoned a demon for Shiro’s safe return.

And the name Lance tasted so familiar on his tongue.

After returning to his home with the stain of blood upon the floor, he excused himself. He stepped out into the night, enjoying the tender caress of the crisp breeze. He rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes, fighting the tears he thought he had long since lost.

“Thank you,” he wheezed, head tilted back and gazing at the stars while his hand dug into the open wound he had summoned Shi with. “Thank you.”

He found Shiro standing outside his home, looking out onto the horizon just as the sun colored the darkened sky. Keith placed a hand on his shoulder, smiling and enjoying the familiar coil of muscle beneath his touch. Shiro was tall and broad shouldered and confident as always. “So, what happened out there? Where were you?”

Almost anticipating Shiro to describe the intricacies of death and how Shi had pulled him from the depths and sent him from the sky for the price of Keith’s memories and four years off of his lifespan.

“I wish I could tell you,” Shiro sighed, “My head’s still pretty scrambled. I was on an alien ship, but somehow I escaped. It’s all a blur.” Shiro shook his head, gazing down at his prosthetic arm.

Keith ground his teeth and wished that he had made a deal with Shi to return Shiro in perfect condition. But Shiro smiled, turning to Keith with a look that made his stomach drop and set butterflies hatching in his lungs. “How did you know to come save me when I crashed?”

And strangely, saying that unusual cave carvings had directed him was less crazy sounding than a demon ate my life and memories in order to bring Shiro back from the dead. “You should come see this,” was all Keith said before directing them both inside with a bubble of joy and a brush of tears he thought he had lost.

  


*** * * * ***

  


As soon as the Zarkon’s mecha-armor had placed its hands on either side of the head of Voltron, Keith heard the faintest whisper against his ear. Chills commandeered his body, and his head snapped back to look at nothing.

It was only when standing in the empty cockpit of the black lion when he understood what the whisper was, a call to him to remember everything he had forced himself to forget. The flicker of purple flames. The icey press of fingers. The whisper of words, cooing and calling and teasing.

Shiro was gone. Vanished. Dead?

_Again._

The team had been in shambles after stumbling from the mouth of the black lion. Keith surged off alone to isolate himself to his room - not anyone’s surprise or complaint.

He snatched his knife from his belt and sliced open his palm, digging deep in desperation and agony. His skin parted with an almost too easy hiss. Crashing to his knees, he drew a small circle, warbled and the star was off center and lopsided, swollen points. He had no candles so he just slapped the center of the circle, smearing more blood and screaming.

“Shi!” Keith shrieked, too desperate to maintain any modicum of calm, “Get the fuck out here!”

“Hello Keith,” Shi breathed like ice on his skin, hands tracing faint lines of goosebumps up his paladin armor and settling on cheek, forcing his head up. Shi stood in the circle, feet settling on either side of Keith’s palm, gossamer cloth tickling his hand. The demon’s smile was wide and hungry, “Do you want to play a game?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> Comments and kudos are my life and I appreciate each and every one of them <3
> 
> If you were curious, the title is from the song "The Gambler" by Kenny Rodgers
> 
> -
> 
> This work is part of [VLD Tropes Fest](http://vldtropesfest.tumblr.com) | Comments and Kudos are appreciated | Anonymous creators will be revealed after the masterlist is posted!


End file.
